The Japan Mint here has started to create metallic stamps to press "Reiwa Gannen," meaning the first year of Reiwa, on coins and the work will take two to three months to complete.

The mint plans to give priority to 500 and 100 yen coins as they are circulated on a mass scale. All six kinds of Japanese coins freshly engraved with the new era name are expected to be publicly circulated from around October. The mint is scheduled to continue making "Heisei 31st year" coins until the new stamps are completed.

According to the mint, when manufacturing coins of "Heisei Gannen" in 1989, the workers sacrificed their holidays to finish making six kinds of stamps and managed to hold a ceremony to start to press the new era's coins within about a month. For the upcoming new era, the facility explained that it will take longer as the number of workers has decreased to about a half of that in 1989 and the manufacturing of memorial coins including for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has increased.